


i'll find you in the next one

by aryelee



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: (like. literally lol), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Found Family, Gen, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:55:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27258298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aryelee/pseuds/aryelee
Summary: In one life, they're sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, four siblings prophecized to save a magical land from an eternal winter.In this one, they're born alone carrying the memories of a family they no longer have.Or: reincarnation and found family, where the family literally has to find each other after they've been reincarnated alone.
Relationships: Caspian/Edmund Pevensie, Digory Kirke & Lucy Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie & Lucy Pevensie & Peter Pevensie & Susan Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie & Susan Pevensie, Peter Pevensie & Susan Pevensie
Comments: 28
Kudos: 264





	i'll find you in the next one

**Author's Note:**

> for the narnia gift exchange! i wrote this for ihaveknownone on tumblr!

When Peter is six, he asks his parents where his siblings are. They laugh at him and say that he’s an only child and they weren’t going to have another kid. That wasn’t an answer he wanted to hear, but even at six Peter knew better than to keep pushing. So he kept quiet and didn’t mention it again.

And his home remained quiet without the presence of the siblings he knew he had.

So he grows up, always lonely and always quiet, looking out of other kids because he never stopped being an older brother. And no matter how hard he looks, there is no Susan, or Edmund, or Lucy. Just him, and his memories.

There are times when Peter doubt himself, wonders if it’s just a dream or delusions left over from childhood, but he knows the laughter of Susan, and the teasing words of Edmund, and the strong hands of Lucy. He knows them. He knows his siblings better than anyone, even when they don’t exist.

(If he’s alone in this world… Peter forces the thought away and tries to forget his dreams when he wakes.)

He grows bigger, and quieter, looking through crowds for familiar faces he’s only half-sure are real.

And when he gets to college, Peter gives up.

‘I guess I’m alone in this life,’ he thinks as he makes his way through campus, holding that familiar ache in his chest. He scrolls through Twitter as he walks just to avoid people; he hasn’t lost the habit of involving himself in things that help people, and now there’s always a friendly face around ready to talk to him. It wouldn’t be so bad if he was able to fully commit to a friendship, but there’s always a part of him that’s looking away, searching for other people he _knows_ should be by his side.

“Hey, Peter!” someone calls, and he forces down a wince as he looks up. Adam waves at him and jogs over, grinning as he holds up his phone. “Check this out!”

“What is it?” Peter asks, looking down at the screen to a video about… archery?

“There’s this girl who’s coming to this university next year on a scholarship because her marksmanship is _insane._ You gotta see what she can do.”

But Peter’s already watching, breath caught in his throat as he watches Susan nock an arrow and send it piercing straight through a target too small to see clearly through the camera. She looks exactly as he remembers, back in Narnia, participating in a tournament and holding the title of champion for years until they returned to England.

She’s here. And if Susan’s here then…

“Can you send that video to me?” he asks. His voice sounds as though it’s coming from far away. His heart beats hummingbird fast. He almost doesn’t want to believe it, because if he’s wrong then it will hurt so much more this time.

“Yeah, no problem. Didn’t know you were into archery,” Adam says as he pulls his phone away. Peter almost reaches out to grab his wrist, to bring back the image of Susan, but Adam pockets his phone and carries on as though he didn’t just alter Peter’s life. “You should probably go, doesn’t your class start soon?”

“It does.”

“Alright, I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow!” Adam leaves, and Peter watches him go.

He isn’t… He doesn’t feel real at the moment. The entire world’s gone soft and faded, like the colors are slowly being washed away. Everything feels quiet and distant and Peter can’t focus on anything other than the fact that _he’s not alone_.

He skips class for the first time that year. He doesn’t even remember leaving campus.

In the age of social media, it’s easy to find Susan. But he wasn’t even sure if that was her _name_ this time around, or if she’d remember anything, if she looked for them too. He doesn’t know anything.

But her Instagram is dedicated to archery and in every tagged photo she’s smiling, which is. Something. It’s a good something.

Looks like she didn’t need an older brother after all.

(Peter thinks about bombs and wardrobes and going years without parents. Thinks about being five and walking a crying four year old Susan home because she fell and scraped her knee. Thinks about his mother in another life, brushing back his hair and telling him in a soft voice that he’s the oldest so he needs to look out for his siblings. Thinks about holding a sword and being terrified that he’s going to outlive all of them. He thinks about a lot of things that don’t matter anymore. They happened in another life, after all.)

He closes the app and collapses onto his bed.

The house is quiet.

Peter tries to focus on other things: school, clubs, deciding whether or not to apply for a part-time job, and most definitely doesn’t think about the siblings he doesn’t have.

His mind, apparently, has other plans. He dreams constantly, of wolves and lions and snow, dreams of a world that no longer exists to him, dreams of a train and a light. After a lifetime (or two?) of ignoring it, suddenly it’s all that he can think about.

Everything’s getting mixed up in his head; Peter hears the church bells ring in the distance and thinks of the small church down the street from the house he lived in while he was in America— except he’s never been to America and the church next to campus is large and old and looks nothing like the one in his memories. He finds himself at the grocery store wondering if he should buy apples to make the apple tart Lucy loved so much, but he’s never been much of a baker and the recipe escapes him.

Even his friends comment on how dazed he is, constantly lost in thought as he walks, forgetting what he’s doing in the middle of doing it, barely able to focus on anything that’s being said. They laugh it off, and Peter laughs with them, but he wonders what he could possibly say if they start asking questions.

It’s hard, now that he knows he’s not alone. But that might be worse; at least when he only had the memory of his siblings, it was easier to live without them. Knowing they’re out there and they don’t know him— that’s what breaks his heart.

“Excuse me,” says a familiar voice, and Peter looks up, tears already welling in his eyes. “Is this seat open?”

It takes him a moment to process her words, then he clears his throat and says, “Go ahead.”

Susan smiles at him and takes a seat.

They argue over who pays the bill, because they both refuse to split it, and it’s so familiar that Susan almost cries. Peter does cry, and she laughs at him because she understands exactly what he’s feeling. Everything in her feels light; she’s gone so long without anyone, having buried her family in two lives, and here is her older brother who _knows_ her, who recognized her before he even saw her, and is so happy he cries.

Susan hadn’t been prepared for this. This small hole-in-the-wall cafe just a couple streets down from the main campus of the university she was touring, the university she’s absolutely going to, between the scholarship and Peter. She walked in, welcoming the warmth after walking around for an hour in the cold wind, and immediately ordered something warm to drink.

The cafe was quiet, only a few people seated here and there, when her eyes caught sight of a familiar face: Peter, typing something on a laptop with an open notebook besides it.

She had spent her whole life wishing she had her siblings back. She wondered, for the longest time, if this was a punishment, to be reborn alone while knowing what it was like to have a loving family. She had been born to an older couple who passed away from illnesses a few years back, and the aunt she lived with now was often out for work.

Susan was far too familiar with loneliness these days.

And then, suddenly, there was Peter and the last time she ever saw him, he was waving goodbye from a train that would take everyone away from her.

(Susan often wondered if they’d ever want to see her again. After everything she did to distance herself from them, all the callous things she said that hurt them when she was pretending to be okay. Wonders if they’d want her back in their lives if they ever met again.)

But he smiled at her, tearing up, and they spent two hours just catching up.

They both skirted around the same topics, careful with their words, but everything that went unsaid was enough for Susan to know that Peter remembered her, them, _everything_ that happened in another life.

He ends up paying, but only because he shoved her away from the cashier and handed them his card before Susan could recover. And he told her that she’d have to pay next time, and wasn’t that something?

There would be a next time.

“Here,” Peter says as they step out of the cafe, holding out his phone to her, “So we don’t lose each other.”

She puts in her number and shoots herself a text to have his number, and hands back his phone. She has to go, she knows, but she doesn’t want to. They’d just found each other again, but now that they had no ties besides memory, their lives were pulling them apart.

“I’m going to be coming here next year. I’m planning on getting an apartment off-campus. I was going to look around for a roommate later, but if you want…”

Peter beams at her and says, “Yeah, of course I’d room with you. It’d be nice to live in the same house again.”

“I guess I’ll see you later.” Susan hesitates, looking down the road where she should go, if she wants to catch the bus that will take her home. She stays.

Peter pulls her into a hug. “You will. I’m free this weekend if you want to hang out.”

Neither of them move for a long time.

It’s only when they really have to that they say goodbye.

Peter’s house is quiet. It’s nice, has plenty of space, and is farther way from campus and downtown, so the streets are quiet and mostly empty. It barely looks lived in.

She had hoped he hadn’t been as lonely as she has, this in this life.

“My parents have been traveling a lot,” Peter says when she asks about his family, “Since I can take care of myself. They’ve been sending money every month so I can buy groceries, and they call every night, but we’re not all that close.”

“Oh.”

“It’s alright though! They’re good parents. It’s just that since I can remember another family…”

They don’t say anything else about their parents.

Now that they’re not in public, it’s easier to speak about themselves. How different everything is, compared to their first life, and they talk about Narnia out loud for the first time in this life. It’s a relief to know that it wasn’t her imagination, or lingering daydreams from childhood.

It was all real. All of it.

And it means she’s not alone at all.

“Have you seen anything about Lucy or Edmund?” Peter asks the next weekend and Susan shakes her head.

“I didn’t think any of you would be here, but somehow we still found each other. I haven’t looked at all since I thought I was alone.”

“I’ve looked but I haven’t gotten anywhere. A friend found you, actually, from one of the videos of your shooting. It was a complete accident.”

He knew she was around because of a video one of her friends took while she practiced, and Susan just happened to go to the same cafe Peter was in. What were the odds?

Peter grabs her arm and tugs her along into a small park just outside the main library. It’s hidden off to the side, between the library and the physics building. Susan has found that Peter is a far better tour guide than the one who showed her around campus that fateful day. He’s lead her down shortcuts and into hidden little areas where people seeking quiet and solitude go.

It reminds her of being seven and following around a young Peter down the streets, hand in hand as they looked with wide eyes all the buildings and people they’ve never taken the time to see before.

It took almost two decades, but she’s here now, with Peter.

She’s here now. She’s here.

Susan stays an extra hour after practice is over, waxing the string and replacing the nock. It’s familiar, comforting work, something she’s done for years, here and in Narnia. By now it’s muscle memory, and she lets her mind wander, remembering wars and tournaments and competitions, remembers people praising her right up until she scares them away with how intense she can be, remembers splitting an apple a field away.

She looks over her bow with careful fingers and sharp eyes, then stands. One target is still set up, and Susan eyes it, breathes out, then nocks an arrow and draws it back in a quick, fluid motion.

It hits the center.

Behind her, the door to the gym opens with a loud screech, and Susan whips around to face the person coming in, one hand grabbing another arrow.

“Sorry for bothering you!” a student, probably a Year 7, says, wringing her hands. “They asked me to get some mats from here.”

Susan lowers her bow and thinks. “Mats? Who’s asking for them? Shouldn’t most clubs be done by now?”

“Ah, some people from the fencing team are still here. Preparing for a competition or something. I didn’t have anything better to do so I stayed behind to watch and decided to help out.”

“Alright,” Susan says, “Let me put my things away and I’ll help you carry them.”

They don’t talk much at all, besides making sure they can both handle the weight, and Susan follows the girl’s lead outside to the field. Sure enough, people in fencing gear and milling around, going through different strikes and stances. Some of them break off from the group to grab the mats from them, giving their thanks as they set up for an impromptu match.

Susan turns to leave, ready to call it a day, when she catches sight of someone taking off their helmet and stops, heart hammering in her chest as Edmund gives her a small wave and takes his place on the mat.

Although fencing is a more delicate way of fighting than he’s used to, Edmund still takes to it easily and becomes the best on his team. He wishes for his sword often, wanting to go back to a more familiar way of fighting, but there’s no need for such skills anymore.

So he settles for the next best thing and fights his way to the top.

The warrior in him never died, after all. It just laid in wait until he was ready to be who he once was.

Sometimes he wonders what it would be like to live without these memories; would he still be the same person? Or would he become a different Edmund, one who never knew any siblings and went through life uncaring of what happened to him? Perhaps he’d be as he was once, years ago, having just left his mother to be safe from bombings and bitter about everything. Or maybe he’d be just like any other boy of this century, laughing and playing video games and wondering what career he’d have in the future.

None of that matters, though, because Edmund does remember. He knows love and heartbreak and grief and joy. He’s lived three lifetimes, all of them impossible, and he carries every memory, every feeling, and holds it close.

And he looks for the people he loves, because he’s never been one to leave others behind.

He wins almost every fencing match, because of course he does. This goes on for years, and though it’s fun and he cherishes the friends he’s made on the team, he wishes he could meet someone who would actually give him a challenge.

Peter would. But he can’t find Peter. Not yet, in any case. There’s very little he can do, being so young (again), and having overprotective mothers. So he plans, looks online, and tries to see what he can do to send out a sign that says “Here! I’m here and I miss you!”

There’s not a day that goes by when he doesn’t miss them. Peter and Susan and Lucy who are probably, hopefully, out there, looking for each other too.

He wants them back.

So Edmund trains and studies and looks around. He tries to see if anyone talks about lions or wardrobes or childhood games in a magical land, but everyone around him is normal. Edmund, who was once both a king and a boy in a world new to him, carries all these memories alone.

He wins another match. It doesn’t feel like much a victory.

(Nightmares of war and battle, of a witch, of gasping for breath, blood on his lips, blood on his hands, feeling everything hurt then fade away. He wishes he knew how to stop fighting.)

He wins match after match.

And then, while practicing alone, he hears someone shout and looks up to see another fencer swinging down their foil with more strength than is allowed in matches. They don’t move like a fencer; they’re aggressive and fluid, slashing and spinning as they force him back.

Edmund feels the wild grin grow on his face as he steps back and becomes the Just King once more, and rises up to meet his opponent.

It feels almost like a dance, alive in a way most of his fights aren’t. There’s energy between them, following a routine no one else knows, twisting their wrists and barely dodging out of the way of another strike. It’s exhilarating. It’s _Narnian_.

Edmund wins this one, too, but it’s a close thing. This isn’t fencing; contact doesn’t stop the fight. But a thin blade pressed against his opponent’s throat does. His heart is pounding in his chest when he tears off his face guard to wipe off the sweat on his brow.

“And who did I have the pleasure of fighting?” he asks, breathing hard even as he grins.

They stand up slowly, and hesitate for a moment before taking off their face guard. “It seems I still have ways to go before I can best you at swordplay,” Caspian says with a lovely smile, one he’s spent a lifetime dreaming of.

The shock sends him to his knees, but when he reaches for him, Caspian reaches back.

“I found Susan,” Edmund says the moment Caspian answers the call.

“What?”

“Susan. You know, my older sister. I found her when I was visiting a friend at another school. She’s still doing archery, by the way. Got a scholarship for it at Peter’s university.”

“Wait, you found Peter too?”

“No, I found Susan. But Susan found Peter and she said she’ll send his contact info over tonight.”

Caspian is silent for a minute, processing what he’s just heard. Then he sighs, and says, “I can’t let you go anywhere alone.”

Edmund laughs, feeling lighter than he has in years, and replies, “That’s why you found me first, isn’t it?”

“Among other reasons.”

He softens and ducks his head. “I’m glad you found me. I never thought that I’d get to see you again.”

“Where you are, I am. You’ve already followed me to the ends of the world. Let me do the same for you now.”

“Caspian, you’re going to make me cry.”

The laugh he gets in response is the same as the one that surrounded him on the Dawn Treader. “What a terrible boyfriend I am. Sure you don’t want to break up with me?”

“Like hell you’re getting rid of me now.”

**Peter(TM):** Sorry I’m gonna be late! People from my club found me :(

 **why does he have a knife:** take your time high king, i know you cant stop yourself from helping them

 **Peter(TM):** I’ll eat all your food

 **why does he have a knife:** i have many swords. try me

 **Miss Stabby:** Why did I think a group chat was a good idea

 **Miss Stabby:** Who changed my name to this, I just wanna talk

 **why does he have a knife:** you KNOW im more creative than that. so i didnt do it

 **Miss Stabby:** Peter. My aim has only gotten better

 **Peter(TM):** ………

 **Peter(TM):** I’ll buy you both crepes if you let me live

 **why does he have a knife:** deal

 **why does he have a knife:** also my bf is gonna be here jsyk

 **Miss Stabby:** YOU DIDNT MENTION A BF

 **Peter(TM):** !!!!

 **why does he have a knife:** yeah caspians excited to see u again

 **Peter(TM):** Caspian’s here too????

 **Miss Stabby:** CASPIAN???

 **Miss Stabby:** WHO ELSE DO WE NEED TO LOOK FOR

 **why does he have a knife:** brb waiters here im ordering first bc u two are taking too long

Edmund hooks his foot around Caspian’s ankle and passes his phone over to him. Peter and Susan’s texts always make him smile. Though none of them live together (yet), having some way of contacting them, of being able to annoy them late at night and see that they’re _here_ is incredible.

Now they only need to find Lucy, and then they can all be together again as a family.

It’s all he’s been dreaming of years.

He can’t wait.

(And on the other side of the restaurant, Lucy tells her grandparents that she sees some friends and that she’s going to talk to them very quickly. And they wave her away, telling her to have fun, and turn back to their food.

Lucy weaves between the tables and catches Caspian’s eyes as she approaches. He sits up and opens his mouth, but she puts a finger against her lips and shushes him, then creeps up towards Edmund.

He’s typing something on his phone, a small smile on his face, and Lucy’s hands are shaking from excitement. She grabs her bracelet, one with a golden lion charm and a dagger charm on it. Takes a deep breath for good luck.

She pulls up a seat next him and sits down.)

Digory taps on the Instagram notification the way his granddaughter Lucy taught him too when she first made him an account. It opens to a picture of Lucy and the rest of her siblings, children who he hasn’t seen in years, children who had grown up without him ever knowing. They’re all pressed against each other, laughing as they struggle to fit onto a small bench.

They look just as they did in the last life, but somehow, brighter. There’s a light in their eyes that he’s never seen before. The weight of a crown and a kingdom no longer rest on their shoulders. In this life, they’re free, and they used that freedom to find each other.

The caption Lucy puts is simple and fun, just like all her other Instagrams.

_“living my found family dreams #youwishyouwereme”_

He likes the picture and comments a yellow heart.

It’s a good life indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> (also eustace is also reincarnated, but he's busy and texted lucy to introduce him after he gets out of school. he's gotta schedule these things or he'll never get anything done lol)


End file.
